NPR: "It's OK to not be passionate about your job"

 It's OK to not be passionate about your job

Prioritizing passion is a relatively new concept when it comes to job searching. In the 1940s and '50s, career advice centered around stability, and workers were encouraged to land positions that would support them and their families. But during the 1970s, '80s and '90s, self-expression overtook stability as the main motivator.

Hmmmm.. . .the 70s and 80s must have skipped here, and we had a second 40s and 50s.

And. . . 

Based on her research, people from wealthier families are more likely to be employed in jobs that speak to their passions and are stable, compared with people from less wealthy backgrounds.

Well, d'uh.

I’m not sure what to make about this.  It's an interesting generational thing, however.  When you are young, it's common to be asked "what do you want to do. . ."  Some people do those things, but not many.

In some occupations, when I later hear somebody say, "I always wanted to be . . .", I'm really skeptical. As a lawyer, whenever somebody says that about the law, I just don't believe it.  What normal ten-year-old wants to be a lawyer?

Or a doctor, or an accountant.

Not many, I'll bet.

But I don't think the concept of trying to do what fits your passion is wholly irrelevant.  It may be dangerous in some ways, if it's a dream that cannot really be fulfilled, which many dreams in the modern world may not be. Want to be a small-time farmer and nothing else? Well, if you weren't born into it, you probably aren't going to realize that dream.

But the flipside is also true.  End up in an occupation, for one reason or another, that doesn't fit your existential nature or some deep-seated trait, you risk at bare minimum being disappointed at some level, or perhaps have to end up one of the hundreds of thousands in our society that are medicated just to get through their day, suppress part of their personality, and make it through work.

Well, it's probably okay not to be passionate about your work.  Indeed, for most people, they're not going to be.  The larger question is what that means for them, and their work.